Take a Sad Song


Book Description

In Take a Sad Song: The Emotional Currency of "Hey Jude," James Campion dives deeply into the song's origins, recording, visual presentation, impact, and eventual influence, while also discovering what makes "Hey Jude" a classic musical expression of personal comfort and societal unity conceived by a master songwriter, Paul McCartney. Within its melodic brilliance and lyrical touchstones of empathy and nostalgia resides McCartney's personal and professional relationship with his childhood friend and songwriting partner, John Lennon, and their simultaneous pursuit of the women who would complete them. There are also clues to the growing turmoil within the Beatles and their splintering generation scarred by war, assassination, and virulent protest. Campion's journey into the song includes the insights of academic experts and professors in the field of musicology, sociology, philosophy, psychology, and history. Campion also reveals commentary from noted Beatles authors, biographers, music historians, and journalists and, finally, a peek into the craft of songwriting from a host of talented composers across several generations. Take a Sad Song is a tribute to how a song can define, inspire, and affect us in ways we do not always fully comprehend, as well as a celebration of a truly amazing track in the Beatles canon that reveals one band's genius and underscores its lasting voice in our cultural and musical landscape.




Country Music


Book Description

A gorgeously illustrated and hugely entertaining story of America's most popular music and the singers and songwriters who captivated, entertained, and consoled listeners throughout the twentieth century—based on the eight-part film series. This fascinating history begins where country music itself emerged: the American South, where people sang to themselves and to their families at home and in church, and where they danced to fiddle tunes on Saturday nights. With the birth of radio in the 1920s, the songs moved from small towns, mountain hollers, and the wide-open West to become the music of an entire nation--a diverse range of sounds and styles from honky tonk to gospel to bluegrass to rockabilly, leading up through the decades to the music's massive commercial success today. But above all, Country Music is the story of the musicians. Here is Hank Williams's tragic honky tonk life, Dolly Parton rising to fame from a dirt-poor childhood, and Loretta Lynn turning her experiences into songs that spoke to women everywhere. Here too are interviews with the genre's biggest stars, including the likes of Merle Haggard to Garth Brooks to Rosanne Cash. Rife with rare photographs and endlessly fascinating anecdotes, the stories in this sweeping yet intimate history will captivate longtime country fans and introduce new listeners to an extraordinary body of music that lies at the very center of the American experience.




Hand to Hold


Book Description

This heartwarming picture book reassures children that a parent’s love never lets go—based on the poignant lyrics of JJ Heller’s beloved lullaby “Hand to Hold.” “May the living light inside you be the compass as you go / May you always know you have my hand to hold.” With delightful illustrations and an engaging rhyme scheme, this book offers the promise of security and love every child’s heart longs to know. From skipping stones and counting stars to climbing trees and telling stories, every moment is wrapped snugly in the certain warmth of a parent’s presence and God’s blessing. With poignancy and joy, this bedtime read captures the unconditional love parents want their children to know but so often fail to express amid the chaos of daily life.




The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present


Book Description

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A Washington Post Notable Book Excerpted in The New Yorker A work of unparalleled candor and splendorous beauty, The Lyrics celebrates the creative life and the musical genius of Paul McCartney through his most meaningful songs. Finally in paperback and featuring seven new song commentaries, the #1 New York Times bestseller celebrates the creative life and unparalleled musical genius of Paul McCartney. Spanning sixty-four years—from his early days in Liverpool, through the historic decade of The Beatles, to Wings and his solo career—Paul McCartney’s The Lyrics revolutionized the way artists write about music. An unprecedented “triumph” (Times UK), this handsomely designed volume pairs the definitive texts of over 160 songs with first-person commentaries on McCartney’s life, revealing the diverse circumstances in which songs were written; how they ultimately came to be; and the remarkable, yet often delightfully ordinary, people and places that inspired them. The Lyrics also includes: · A personal foreword by McCartney · An unprecedented range of songs, from beloved standards like “Band on the Run” to new additions “Day Tripper” and “Magical Mystery Tour” · Over 160 images from McCartney’s own archives Edited and introduced by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon, The Lyrics is the definitive literary and visual record of one of the greatest songwriters of all time.




The Story of My Feelings


Book Description

Kids will read and sing along as feelings come to life in The Story of My Feelings. Growing up is a tough job, and it is important to embrace laughing, sighing, crying, and yelling. Fun and engaging illustrations by Caroline Jayne Church accompany the lyrics and add a vibrancy to the CD. You know you'll feel better after you read and sing The Story of My Feelings!




Man on the Run


Book Description

Based on exclusive first-hand interviews, a chronicle of Paul McCartney's struggles in the first decade after the Beatles' breakup discusses his reclusive life, substance abuses, arrests, and efforts to launch his band Wings.




The Love You Make


Book Description

The national bestseller that Newsday called “the most authoritative and candid look yet at the personal lives…of the oft-scrutinized group,” from the author of All You Need Is Love: The Beatles in Their Own Words. In The Love You Make, Peter Brown, a close friend of and business manager for the band—and the best man at John and Yoko’s wedding—presents a complete look at the dramatic offstage odyssey of the four lads from Liverpool who established the greatest music phenomenon of the twentieth century. Written with the full cooperation of each of the group’s members and their intimates, this book tells the inside story of the music and the madness, the feuds and the drugs, the marriages and the affairs—from the greatest heights to the self-destructive depths of the Fab Four. In-depth and definitive, The Love You Make is an astonishing account of four men who transformed the way a whole generation of young people thought and lived. It reigns as the most comprehensive, revealing biography available of John, Paul, George, and Ringo. Includes 32 pages of rare and revealing photos A Literary Guild® Alternate Selection




The Beatles and the Beatlesque: A Crossdisciplinary Analysis of Sound Production and Stylistic Impact


Book Description

The Beatles and the Beatlesque address a paradox emanating from The Beatles’ music through a cross-disciplinary hybrid of reflections, drawing from both, musical practice itself and academic research. Indeed, despite their extreme stylistic variety, The Beatles’ songs seem to always bear a distinctive identity that emerges even more in similar works by other artists, whether they are merely inspired, derivative or explicitly paying homage. The authors, a musicologist and music producer, emphasize the importance of record production in The Beatles' music in a way that does justice not only to the final artifacts (the released songs) but also to the creative process itself (i.e., the songs "in the making"). Through an investigation into the work of George Martin and his team, as well as The Beatles themselves, this text sheds light on the role of the studio in shaping the group's eclectic but unique sound. The chapters address what makes a song “Beatlesque”, to what extent production choices are responsible for developing a style, production being understood not as a mere set of technicalities, but also in a more conceptual way, as well as the aesthetics, semiotics and philosophy that animated studio activity. The outcome is a book that will appeal to both students and researchers, as well as, of course, musicophiles of all kinds.




This Song is (Not) For You


Book Description

"Music is the second most important thing," I say. That was something my mother would always say. We've stopped saying it out loud, but I think it all the same. The most important thing is love. From the author of the New York Times and USA Today Bestselling If He Had Been With Me comes a captivating novel about navigating—and protecting—the loves and friendships that sustain us. Ramona fell for Sam the moment she met him. It was like she had known him forever. He's one of the few constants in her life, and their friendship is just too important to risk for a kiss. Though she really wants to kiss him... Sam loves Ramona, but he would never expect her to feel the same way-she's too quirky and cool for someone like him. Still, they complement each other perfectly, both as best friends and as a band. Then they meet Tom. Tom makes music too, and he's the band's missing piece. The three quickly become inseparable. Except Ramona's falling in love with Tom. But she hasn't fallen out of love with Sam either. How can she be true to her feelings and herself without losing the very relationships that make her heart sing? This Song is (Not) for You is perfect for readers looking for: Contemporary teen romance books Unputdownable & bingeworthy novels Complex emotional YA stories Novels that explore monogamy, polyamory, and asexuality Characters with a passion for music Performance art




Fab


Book Description

He is one of the most famous, most wealthy people on the planet, and yet he remains little-known and understood as a personality. At long last, Paul McCartney is the subject of a major, deeply researched, psychologically acute biography. It tells a story that will illuminate and surprise. The publication finds McCartney - who turns 70 in 2012 - revitalized as a performer (touring with a set of mostly Beatles songs) and a man buffeted by profound changes in recent years: the death of his first wife, Linda; the death of George Harrison; a second marriage, to Heather Mills, and its spectacular failure, the fall-out from which is still crashing around him.